Creator

Publisher

Date

2014

Language

Português
Resumo em inglês

Type

Artigo cientifico

Abstract

AbstractSince 1907, documented human skeletal collections have provided the impetus for most of the biological anthropology research that has been undertaken at the National Museum of Natural History. The hiring of the first anthropologist for the department of zoology and anthropology at the National Museum, in 1919, resulted from the initial stimulus provided by the donation of the Ferraz de Macedo collection. Earlier in 1911, the same collection motivated the creation of the anthropology course at the Faculty of Sciences, to which the Museum was attached. Eighty years later, following the fire which destroyed the Ferraz de Macedo collection, a new collection filled in the loss and provided an additional drive. In a short amount of time, the National Museum of Natural History gained international notoriety in skeletal biology research, and was able to improve the conditions in both the skeletal collections and the anthropology laboratory. Nonetheless, due to the transient nature of the work carried out by Museum researchers, biological anthropology was never firmly established at this institution.